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The Worst Anime of Winter 2024

I will argue again that ShangriLa Frontier has some of the best looking fights in years (one I feel is even better than anything from Frieren) but the show overall? Meh.

I'm not trying to be pedantic and pull out a dictionary, here, but 'objective' doesn't mean 'certain' -- there are even entire vistas of science and mathematics devoted precisely to studying the uncertain! 'objective' just means we're talking about a fixed feature of the world that won't vary depending on who observes, interprets, or reacts to it.

If, say, I set out to make a realistic 3D model of a humanoid character but the end result is a jarring collage of anatomically impossible terror (which I have done in the past, quite frequently ), then the mismatch between my goal and what I achieved, and that it derived from my lack of technical ability, is an objective fact. The goal I set for myself was, of course, subjective; that I judged the gap as significant was probably a mix of subjective and objective (depending on what exactly about my monstrosity struck me as not achieving my goal, whether the mood it evoked or whether it failed in form on a more technical level).

In terms of critique, this can be used to make 'objective' statements, albeit with uncertainty, by viewing a show, noticing commonly made errors, and using expert judgement to assess whether they were more likely an artistic choice to deviate from convention, or a failure of ability.

I agree with the general sentiment here, but I see things slightly differently. What you call an "opinion piece" is mostly worthless in the eyes of many people, myself included, because it's as good as any random chat in your local bar. So there really is no reason for it to have any place on a site like this, and it should stay far away from any professional, serious terms like "review", "best", "worst", etc. The people who deserve to be payed to write about anime, or any art, are those competent enough and willing to weave their passion and skills to evaluate and judge media through objective parameters, on top of the subjective ones that everybody else is as good for.

Indeed, Bocchi a great show. K-On! hits me harder because of its different goals, but both shows are 100% successful at what they are doing and I really like Bocchi as well. Also, and I am the last person to world to pretend to know anything about music, but I personally like the music in K-On! a lot more than in Bochhi. (Saying I don't things quite as much as K-On! is no insult, since I basically don't like much of anything quite as much as I like K-On!)

Have to correct you on one thing here: Saturdays are The Apothecary Diaries days.

And yes, the band t-shirt joke was stellar -- Bocchi is objectively one of the funniest and most creative shows I've seen in recent years.

Fair enough, but do you find the same faults in the lengthier episode reviews by the same authors, assuming you read those? That's a genuine question, because part of the problem with this kind of column is that it is necessarily going to be controversial and reductive (in terms of the space allotted to each author and show) and thus push people’s buttons -- which, for all I know, may be the point (although it would be ironic if I were to speculate about authorial intention in light of what I have been arguing). Maybe some authors are just trying to be controversial, but others seem genuinely disappointed with certain shows so I don't feel it's right to dismiss them all on the same grounds.

cutslo wrote:

I don't think nobody actually expects a scientific investigation into what is objectively the worst anime of the season from an article like this. I mean, the closest you'll ever get to that would be just to point out what rated the lowest on MAL or something, and everyone can just look that up easily (it's Delusional Monthly, by the way). Something like this will only ever be "here's some things we personally thought were pretty bad in this season and we want to write about", only with a more catchy title. It's just that it's pretty eyerolling when every writer feels the need to drop the same disclaimer up front instead of owning that their "worst of the season" might possibly not actually be the one everyone agrees on. If you're going to do that, you might as well just change the title too.

Agreed except I think it’s more than just an annoying disclaimer that people might not agree. I think most genuinely don’t feel their choices even might be the worst of the season for themselves subjectively if they’d watched more shows this season.

Kind of a less extreme form of: if someone only watched one show this year, it would technically be their personal Best and Worst, but they wouldn’t actually think of it in terms of both “Best Anime of 2024!” and “Worst Anime of 2024!” The terms imply something is very good or very bad when used outside of specific contexts.

You seem to have a pretty reasonable and measured response to this issue, so I’m somewhat surprised by that last sentence. I mean you surely acknowledge that “good” and “bad” aren’t fixed, objective markers, and that what you find "good" is precisely what someone else might find “bad”? I agree that there is something like “commonly understood objectivity” except as I pointed out tastes also change radically over time and are conditioned by all sorts of factors (and this applies to anime too). Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, as you may know. We always say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but prevailing standards of what merits the label of "art" are perpetually changing.

I was struck by this in particular when reading the previews for Ishura; one reviewer claimed the show looked good, the other said that it looked terrible (or something along those lines). Who’s right? Yes, we can start debating the color palette, background art, line work, compositing, rendering, keyframes etc., but at the end of the day you have two different subjective responses to the same work. There’s no accounting for taste – some people love, others hate 3DCG animation, to use one controversial example. Your first paragraph actually summarizes what I was suggesting about criticism being subjective. I think that what we’re really talking about isn’t whether criticism is subjective or objective, but rather whether a particular piece of criticism is good or bad (again, a matter of subjective interpretation), which ultimately comes down to how persuasive it is. Is it using convincing arguments based on analysis and attention to detail, or just reductive commentary based on gut reaction? You are pointing out that the reviewer’s criticism of a series because of negative personal experiences isn’t much of a critical argument, since it is a biased reaction. Then again, if this is an opinion piece (and even if it were a review), we can’t really fault the authors for this. What is problematic, as the comments show, is labelling these things “best” or “worse”, especially since this might stop people from actually checking out a series that might be worth their time because of their reliance on reviews (which was my initial point, in my first post). I'm always wary of reviewers who try to pass off their subjective impressions as fact, but at least most of these authors actually provided disclaimers (for which they are now getting flak). So, once again, the problem resides in the article title: if the words "best" and "worst" hadn't been used, we wouldn't even be having this discussion -- and perhaps the article would then have gotten less attention (which is the cynical way of seeing this).

Honestly though, the issue is, in my opinion, even simpler. At the end of the day, an article like this is just hot takes for entertainment. It's not about deciding anything or giving out an award or a number that gets put into Metacritic. So it's not an issue with the actual content (i. e., opinion) or with the headline. The issue is just one of writing. The idea is to be entertaining and I come to an article like this to read some funny sick burns or at the very least info about shows flaming out that I would not otherwise have had a reason to read about*. And when a major part of the content is just apologies or wishy-washy "it's not that bad but it's the worst I've seen and point X and Y are actually good about it", it just doesn't make for an entertaining read unless you have some inspired line of argument.

cutslo wrote:

Honestly though, the issue is, in my opinion, even simpler. At the end of the day, an article like this is just hot takes for entertainment. It's not about deciding anything or giving out an award or a number that gets put into Metacritic. So it's not an issue with the actual content (i. e., opinion) or with the headline. The issue is just one of writing. The idea is to be entertaining and I come to an article like this to read some funny sick burns or at the very least info about shows flaming out that I would not otherwise have had a reason to read about*. And when a major part of the content is just apologies or wishy-washy "it's not that bad but it's the worst I've seen and point X and Y are actually good about it", it just doesn't make for an entertaining read unless you have some inspired line of argument.

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but from my reading of the article I just don’t think it’s primarily a writing issue unless we want them to dishonestly pretend to hate things that they don’t for entertainment purposes. I think the root cause is what you refer to later: that [almost] none of the writers saw anything bad enough this season to fire themselves up like that.

I’d also accept spicy meatballs like "widely beloved show Dungeon Meshi is actually the worst" if they had a writer available who believed that, but I don’t think they do. Just someone who didn’t like it much.

People confusing "factual statement about an aggregate of subjective opinions" with "objective fact" once again, what else is new.

Cutslo sayeth

Quote:

People confusing "factual statement about an aggregate of subjective opinions" with "objective fact" once again, what else is new.

We know what good animation looks like and what bad animation looks like. We know good OSTs from lousy OSTs. We can discern good character writing from poor character writing. Expert world building from inept. Comic timing. Direction and editing. Action and fight scenes. Original writing from a thudding reliance on clichés. (Although originality is generally overrated and less important than execution.) Etc.

The Eminence is Shadow is factually a better comic / action isekai than Instant Death Ability. Everything it does it does better that that show, in every single artistic arena. Is it possible to like Instant Death Ability better? Somehow, yes. But that's subjective. Eminence's superiority as a work is not. That's why nearly every single selection in the article we're discussing, except for Lord of the Ring Wives or whatever that thing is--because that is patently actually bad--came with disclaimers from the writers stating that their particular choice wasn't actually the worst anime this season. How did they know it wasn't actually the worst? Because you can tell a good show from a bad one, a competent show from an incompetent one.

There is valid play on the margins on these things when talented people challenge norms in a way that many people find displeasing but which has a point to make. On the main, though, the fun comes when you start grading things that are very good or bad into finite categories like "best" and "worst." Is Apothecary Diaries better than Dangers In My Heart? Is Bocchi better than K-On! Is Frieren better than Mushoku Tensie? At that point we do enter again the land of subjectivity, and enjoy the arguments for their entertainment value and hopefully because they make you think about the subjects and art at large in different ways than you had before. But Frieren is objectively a better anime than Delusional Magazine Monthly. You can say all day long that's not a fact. But you'd be wrong.

There is no objective standard for animation quality, so no.

Cutslo doth assert

Quote:

There is no objective standard for animation quality, so no.

There is, though, in fact there are several of them. What's the framerate? Is the animation static or fluid? Do the characters stay on model or do they look different from shot to shot? Does the cat look like a cat or can you not tell what the hell it is? Do things mysteriously change color from shot to shot? The animation is Ex-Arm is objectively, factually bad. The animation in Akira or Spirited Away is objectively, inspiringly, factually good.

Well, I'll just throw in my two cents and say that while this article was entertaining to read, it definitely should be "Most Disappointing" rather than "Worst". I can't blame people for not even bothering to watch the actual worst shows, since there are plenty that are obviously bad right from the outset.

Honestly, the worst thing I think I've seen this season is officially this thread.